In case you didn't know, I have anxiety/panic when driving, mainly on highways and high traffic.
Each time I drive to the city I grip the wheel so tightly, my knuckles are white,and it tires me out from all the extreme tension. I see others driving that look so at ease and relaxed and always wish I could do the same.
Seems I didn't use to have this problem in years past, not sure why its gotten worse. But nevertheless I push myself anyway. Its like a very big ordeal for me to agree to drive somewhere in the middle of a big city/town, even in this little small town I get nervous thinking about driving and finding a place in the tiny town.
There has been lots of times when I would turn down going somewhere to meet someone, and I really wanted to go, simply because it was in the city and I would have such panic/fear about the scenario of getting lost.
So yesterday, this may not be really that big of deal but to me each time is like a success, I drove to the city to get my roots redone and it was all the way through the city. I only broke down once and called a friend to help me out because I was afraid I was lost and so she reassured me I was going in the right direction, then I felt like an idiot because I could have done it without calling her but my panic got the best of me.
On top of the direction problem (never have known e,s,w,n) I also, even more so, have the panic problem with thinking cars and mainly big semi's are going to come over in my lane, especially the semi's because I've had that happen before where they didn't see me and I had to floor it to get in past them, so yesterday while driving, I thought that this truck was going to come over and so I swerved but he really wasn't it was just my imagination, so then I fear that people might think I'm drunk or something!!
Anyway, I found my way even though I've been to the place twice now, and only once did I panic when I couldn't remember if I was supposed to take a certain exit but I ended up going in the right direction.
When I got home I felt successful, even though I still panicked.
Thing is, I keep thinking that each time I do this that I'll get less and less fearful but I never seem to get past that, don't know why. Maybe if I was doing it every single day, maybe thats what it would take.
Tomorrow I will be doing the same thing going up to my mom's but I feel more safe with that because I know exactly the way to go and have already done it many times, yet I still deal with the panic of other cars.
